Luther and Beauty
Much Lutheran theology done since the mid-1950s has been deeply influenced by Existentialism and so is apt to read Luther with blinders, finding no place for a theology of beauty in his writings. Existentialism does not value the senses or the aesthetic dimension of experience. Indeed, for Søren Kierkegaard, one of the earliest figures in Existentialism, humans ought to progress from the perspective of an “aesthete” (whom he sees a pleasure-seeker), to that of ethical maturity, and finally to that of a “knight of faith” who puts reason on the back burner and leaps in the dark at God’s invitation. That intellectual trajectory will hardly find much value in aesthetics or beauty.
It is, however, foreign to my experience as a Lutheran. Not only is “Beautiful Savior” a beloved hymn, but my specific background treasured Bach and Pachelbel, as well as artistic representations of the gospel. Clearly there is a dissonance between my upbringing which so valued beauty in worship and existentialist readings of Luther which clearly do not.
No doubt, many times Luther used colorful language from the carnival and marketplace to drive home a theological point. And, he is the master of snarkiness with his opponents. Those traits do not make him come across a friend of beauty. But how do you explain how Lutheranism has treasured beauty in its worship, and in the artistic expressions crafted in those cultures influenced by Lutheranism?
Even so, Luther would not seem to be a go-to thinker for a theology of beauty. After all, struggle with God (tentatio), along with prayer (oratio) and meditation (meditatio), is built into his understanding of spirituality. Throughout his career, and well after, Luther articulated the gospel as through grace alone and received through faith alone, Luther wrestled with God. He was not so dissimilar to Jacob who wrestled with the angel at the ford of the Jabbok. Beauty conveys a sense of tranquility, delight, and pleasure. These words hardly seem compatible with the storms that Luther faced both personally, in his soul, and professionally, in the politics of his day. Of course, Luther played the lute, sang tenor, composed hymns, and was good friends with the painter and Wittenberg entrepreneur, Lucas Cranach. But was his appreciation for beauty mediated only through art, or was there perhaps something actually intrinsic to the gospel that is beautiful?
“Luther’s theology of beauty was no compartmentalized appreciation, but it grew out of his understanding of the gospel as God’s word of comfort and joy to repentant sinners.”
Luther’s theology of beauty was no compartmentalized appreciation, but it grew out of his understanding of the gospel as God’s word of comfort and joy to repentant sinners. Some might see his theology of beauty as negating Luther’s distinction of a “theology of the cross” one of “glory.” In the latter, sinners are not wholly in need of a new birth. They can exercise some Aristotelian virtue which can help them ascend to God’s own goodness, beauty, and purity. But, in the theology of the cross, God does a foreign, alien work on self-satisfied, self-righteous sinners, precisely in order to catch them in a cul-de-sac of their own making. Given that the law actually proves itself not to be a path toward greater purity than it at first seems, but is instead a whip which accuses sinners, reduces them to despair, Luther drew the distinction between the “love of man” which “comes into being through that which is pleasing to it” and the “love of God” which “does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it.” Human love needs an object of beauty to spark it. God’s love, in contrast, is inherently creative. It needs no such object. Out of the nothingness of human sin and death, God creates new people in Christ, who trust nothing of their own resources but instead in God’s mercy alone. Said aesthetically, God deems sinners beautiful for Jesus’ sake.
Medieval thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas looked to light or color, proportion, and integrity or perfection as criteria by which to judge beauty. But, for Luther, these standards cannot apply to Jesus Christ. He was, as Isaiah tells us, “without form or comeliness” (Is 53:2). Jesus was wasted by sinners: stripped, beaten, scourged, crucified, and hung out to die. But Jesus not only died as a victim of human violence. He also actively bore the sins of the world and God’s wrath against sin, all so that sinners might be forgiven. In Jesus’ atoning work, our sin was buried in a tomb never to be found again, even by God. For Luther, that in Jesus’ atoning work God would bear and bury our sin is most beautiful indeed. He did not appeal to those medieval thinkers who highlighted light, proportion, and perfection, but instead to a minority report about beauty which saw beauty as paradoxical. One such paradoxical thinker, whom Luther read in the Erfurt Augustinian cloister, was Bernard of Clairvaux. Bernard did not approach the question of beauty in terms of analogy which assumes a step ladder or scale of beautiful things which ascends to God by means of greater proportions (in spite of the still greater difference that exists between God and creatures). Instead, Bernard appealed to beauty in a paradoxical way, seen for example, in his exegesis of the Song of Solomon (1:5) where the bride (our soul wedded to Christ) notes that she is dark yet comely. Hence, in ourselves before God, as sinners, we are ugly. But as clothed in Christ’s righteousness we are indeed beautiful to God. With respect to Jesus Christ: as bearer of our sin Jesus Christ is ugly; but, paradoxically, as faithful in God’s love to sinners, he is most beautiful.
“God deems sinners beautiful for Jesus’ sake.”
Crushed by the accusing law, sinners look not to their own alleged beauty or coveted divine traits (such as “free will”), but instead to the words of a gospel-preacher who imparts God’s love and commitment to them for Jesus’ sake. They see God as beautiful not on the basis of the metaphysical “transcendentals,” the structures of being as such, where beauty is often associated with goodness, but instead experientially, through anticipating the reaction of the waiting father (Luke 15) who not only generously forgives his prodigal but is also thereby beautiful. Repentant sinners crave this good word of forgiveness, and through it, grow in love for their Heavenly Father, and find their lives transformed by generosity towards their fellow humans and creation.
Faith itself is markedly aesthetic. With their guards lowered, living solely by trust in God’s promise, sinners find their senses to be awakened. They appreciate nature as creation, as a sheer gift from God, and receive it joyfully. Faith opens receptivity to creation, kindles wonder, and evokes gratitude. It is, in fact, the abundant life Jesus promises, not a life where everything is always delightful, since we too find crosses set before us, but a life open to the whole gamut of experience, ups, and downs, voiced in praise and lament, given word in the Psalter, the book which is true “know thyself,” as Luther put it, precisely because it gives voice to the full range of human experience. In his late Genesis lectures, when Luther describes the creation of Adam, Adam’s traits are so excellent that the old criteria of proportion, light, and perfection say too little. For Luther God is always and ever masked in creation. Sometimes that masking is ominous and threatening, especially for sinners, but it is also providential, and therefore beautiful. In contrast to modern, secular thinkers like Max Weber, Luther always testifies that nature is creation, a mask of God, and therefore enchanted, not merely a resource for human consumption or instrument for human control.
Secular thinkers can only conceive of beauty not as anchored in reality but instead as a stimulus response trait that apparently had survival value for our ancestors. No doubt that survival values were the tranquility that allowed our ancestors not to be overly anxious. But, the attempt to reduce beauty to “survival value,” however, hardly squares with experience. The experience of beauty is far more akin to a disclosure about reality, one which makes us feel at home in the universe. It discloses that God is truly good and wants his children to delight in the goodness of creation. In public life, Christians should bring beauty to the fore, as much as they bring ethical absolutes to the fore, when they engage secularists.
As Christians, we enjoy beauty especially in the divine service. We gather with angels, archangels, and all the hosts of heaven to enjoy Christ and ultimately to taste and see that Christ is good (Psalm 34:8) in the holy supper.
Rev. Dr. Mark Mattes serves as Chair of the Department of Theology at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa. To read more from Mark consider his book Martin Luther’s Theology of Beauty: A Reappraisal (Baker Academic, 2017) and Law and Gospel in Action: Foundation, Ethics, Church, a collection of essays.